As someone who’s spent a fair bit of time in the platform engineering trenches, I’ve seen my share of successes and failures. But if there’s one lesson that stands out above the rest, it’s this: platform engineering is fundamentally about building a product for your fellow engineers. Fail to recognize that, and you’re setting yourself up for a world of pain.

The Platform as a Product

It’s easy to get caught up in the technical details of building and maintaining a platform. But we need to take a step back and remember that the platform itself is a product. Just like any other product, it needs to be:

  • Useful: It should solve real problems that engineers face.
  • Usable: It should be intuitive and easy to work with.
  • Desirable: It should make engineers' lives easier and their work more enjoyable.
  • Valuable: It should deliver tangible benefits to the organization.

If your platform isn’t meeting these criteria, it’s not fulfilling its purpose.

Engineers as Customers

Your fellow engineers are the customers of your platform. They’re the ones who will be using it daily to build and deploy applications. Treat them as such. That means:

  • Understanding their needs: What are their pain points? What do they need to be successful?
  • Listening to their feedback: What do they like and dislike about the platform? What features would they like to see?
  • Involving them in the process: Get their input on design decisions and feature prioritization.
  • Providing excellent customer service: Be responsive to their questions and issues.

The more you engage with your engineering customers, the better your platform will become.

The Consequences of Neglect

Ignoring the product-customer relationship in platform engineering has serious consequences:

  • Low adoption: If engineers find the platform difficult or unhelpful, they won’t use it.
  • Frustration and resentment: A platform that doesn’t meet engineers' needs will create frustration and resentment.
  • Wasted resources: If the platform isn’t used, the time and effort invested in building and maintaining it are wasted.
  • Missed opportunities: A well-designed and adopted platform can be a powerful enabler of innovation and productivity.

A Better Way Forward

How do we do platform engineering right? Here are a few tips:

  1. Embrace a product mindset: Think of your platform as a product, not just a set of tools and infrastructure.
  2. Focus on the user experience: Make sure the platform is easy to use and provides a positive experience for engineers.
  3. Listen to your customers: Gather feedback from engineers and use it to improve the platform.
  4. Iterate and improve: Continuously evolve the platform to meet changing needs.
  5. Build a community: Foster a sense of ownership and collaboration among engineers.

By adopting a product-customer approach, we can create platforms that truly empower engineers and drive organizational success.

Let’s stop making the same old mistakes and start building platforms that engineers love to use!